I live in Guyana, South America and a friend of mine was visiting New Jersey so he took it upon himself to grab a few parts for me at the microcenter in Patterson, I set up a list of the parts I wanted (he isn't the most tech savy) which included: Xeon E3 1230v2, Asrock H77 mITX, AMD Radeon 7850 1gb all by part numbers and store item numbers that I grabbed from the website but things but a bit iffy once he got into the store.
The Sales reps informed him that the processor was not compatible with the mobo I had on the list and as such talked him into getting a i5 3470.. So I now have a watered down i5 instead of a i7 in disguise and incase you are wondering I wasn't planning to overclock and the xeon would have fit my needs.
He is now back in GY and I now have the processor that I don't want/need in my hand and no idea where to go from here, it took me quite a long time to sum up that amount of cash it seems like a bit of a waste now.

Sorry if this is the wrong forum I checked the other sections and this seemed the most appropriate Im just disappointed that they miss informed him on the mobo when it clearly was compatible and they didn't even give him the 2 games that amd bundles with the card.

So in the interest of it being in this section, what steps can i take if any to resolve this and how far does the i5 3470 with no hyperthreading fall behind the xeon for video editing and light gaming (lol/wow/bf3)?

Items were bought on the 4th April and within the 10day return period but shipping it back would extend beyond this time.

That sounds rather unfortunate. Looks like you lose out on 2MB of L3, HyperThreading, and a 100Mhz bin in going from a Xenon E3-1230V2 to the i5-3470. Granted, I'm sure you saved a little bit in winding up with the i5, but I'd imagine that's little comfort. As a general rule in games, most would argue that there's not a whole lot lost. However, in video editing, I'd suspect you'd notice the difference during long encode/decodes. You do get the Intel's HD 2500 GPU for use with QuickSync, which might actually save you a significant amount of time in the applications that can utilize it.

I suppose you could try to contact MicroCenter and see if they'd consider extending your return period, or allow you to ship them the processor as a return, but that's probably a long shot. Sorry to hear about the misfortune.

Gotta wonder why the stupid sales person didn't know the Xeon was compatible! Anyway, you're not going to notice a huge difference. Few FPS perhaps with just a hair slower core speed and 75% of the cache. Hyperthreading (8 virtual cores) will make a difference in some games, others not so much.

You do gain integrated graphics which is certainly a plus, should you want to move the 7850 into a full size rig and turn the ASRock into a media box.

Gotta wonder why the stupid sales person didn't know the Xeon was compatible! Anyway, you're not going to notice a huge difference. Few FPS perhaps with just a hair slower core speed and 75% of the cache. Hyperthreading (8 virtual cores) will make a difference in some games, others not so much.

You do gain integrated graphics which is certainly a plus, should you want to move the 7850 into a full size rig and turn the ASRock into a media box.

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I wish this was an option however this needs to be a portable working rig as I move around out of town alot, guess I'll send an email to microcenter support and prepare to live with this for the next 2-3 years as a worse case scenario. Thanks everyone for their thoughts I'm feeling less down about the whole issue.

In an awesome turn of events I managed to get a very quick return that'll arrive at them on sunday so I'll be getting my 1230v2 after all, should I return the Sapphire 7850 1GB and get the EVGA 650ti boost 2GB?

dont you just hate donkey store sales rep's that dont know jack, my mum bought a telly and the donkeys talked her into getting monster scart/hdmi cables that were stupid expensive cause they thought it would increase clarity and whats worse is the the tv wasnt even hd(yep this was a few years ago), and I didnt know for ages so she couldnt bring them back grrr

yeah the 650ti seems ok and yeah on the plus the mainboard has graphics so you could use it on its own if anything happens to the g card, or as above turn it into a media box

I don't understand why your friend would change anything if working from a list with part numbers and store item numbers, no matter what the salesperson said. That's kind of an insult to your PC building knowledge, your friend should have stood by your list. But I'm glad it turned out okay for you. This is why I never let sales people "help" me; I know more about the products than most of them, even though I'm an auto tech by trade, and I definitely know more about my needs and budget. Hopefully your friend learned a valuable lesson that day - that most sales people are full of it.

So an update on this, everything got into my hands at 9:05am this morning sat 13th april 2013; everything except the processor that was no where to be found, he removed everything from their boxes and repacked them to carry it on the plane with him so this lead to a day length search of both homes in New Jersey and Guyana that came up fruitless. Everything was sealed in their respective bags from what i can tell. I do have the manual and HSF just not that important little chip. This is beyond depressing because I have all the parts for my pc except the processor and I'll have to wait 5 months for him to replace it. This is indeed a rocky start.

He did confirm that the box was sealed but removed everything to put it in his carry on luggage to bring it to Guyana; and i broke the seal on the manual myself so I'm a bit mystified aswell after watching a few unboxings on youtube and seeing the placement of it.

We do have the receipt(s) but at this point I doubt its of any use anymore.

I almost had a heart attack when I unboxed my 3570K and couldn't find the CPU, then I realized it was in a hidden compartment on the other side of the box. Maybe your friend left it in the package and inadvertently threw it out, it's not hard to do if you don't know what a CPU is and think that the heat sink/fan is the whole deal. Like you said, you can't depend on just anyone to know what they're doing when it comes to buying parts. I know your friend's heart was in the right place, and I hate it when stuff like that happens, because there's nobody to blame, it's just one of those things you have to accept, like death and taxes.

Just to update this, a really awesome friend I have never met but have been gaming with for 3yrs sent me a newegg giftcard to get the processor I originally wanted, my friend will eventually repay me and in turn my friend but this has been a really great development so in 2 weeks it should be here xD

on a side note: what kinda of performance can i get from 2x 160gb 5400rpm drives in raid0?

Just to update this, a really awesome friend I have never met but have been gaming with for 3yrs sent me a newegg giftcard to get the processor I originally wanted, my friend will eventually repay me and in turn my friend but this has been a really great development so in 2 weeks it should be here xD

on a side note: what kinda of performance can i get from 2x 160gb 5400rpm drives in raid0?

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5400rpm drives are slow, RAID 0 might net average or slightly higher than average speeds, not entirely worth it i dont think unless that is the cheapest viable option.

XD Check what just arrived at my desk at work! Well im not ordering a case till I get paid at the end of may so I will probably have to ghetto rig something if anyone wants to see what I come up with? :3

If it were me, I'd setup the rig on the cardboard box the motherboard came in and give it a test. (Assuming of course that the motherboard as an 'On' button on it or you've got a way to short the Power Button pins on the Front Panel header) I'd hate to get the case, put it all together, and then find out the system doesn't POST.

It is nice to see after all that hassle that you were able to get a working computer in the end. I can't imagine how much of a relief it must've been to see it POST. Always a good feeling, but those seconds between when you push that button and when the activity light on the monitor illuminates are seriously nail-biting.